FreeSBIE results

Well, my FreeSBIE experiment was a qualified success. At first, I thought it was another heartbreak. I booted off the CD on two different machines, and in both cases, the X server came up just fine, but the mouse was frozen. So it was good to see the older, ATI All-in-Wonder card come up just fine, but it was still unfortunate that I couldn't get the mouse to work.

So I tried a few other things. I left the machine switched in while it booted, but that didn't seem to help. But then I accidently moved the mouse while the X server was starting up, and, voila, I had a working mouse! Even switching out and back didn't break it. And it even worked on the older machine too - whoopee!

So it looks like if I have the mouse send a message at some point during the boot phase, the FreeBSD mouse drivers recognize it just fine. I might play with it some more to see exactly what's up, and then I might retry the latest FreeBSD full CD-ROM and see what happens. Or maybe just try the installation option on the FreeSBIE one.

FreeSBIE - Free System Burned In Economy